Roman Safiullin, who is Sinner’s opponent in the Wimbledon quarter-finals – Corriere.it

Before setting foot on the lawns of Wimbledon, Roman Safiullin he had won just six games on the season. This explains the ranking (number 92 in the world) which today, seeing where he has arrived, makes your eyes widen: the Russian, 25 years old, will face Jannik Sinner. Up for grabs is the semifinal of a Grand Slam, a goal dreamed of many times when Roman – born in Podolsk, a town 20 km from Moscow – was number two in the world at Junior level in 2014, having also won the Australian Open in the category. A predestined, in short, who had lived a magical year, made up of 42 successes out of 46 matches played. from there he got lost between pressure and injuriesmaking himself noticed only in Marseille, where in February 2022 he had folded Tsitsipashis first (and only) top 10 hit in his career.

Stay in a second-hand hotel

a particular character Safiullin. These days for example, despite a jackpot already collected of over 430 thousand euros, he is staying in a small second-hand hotel 30 kilometers from Wimbledon. Not that a worthy overnight stay at the Hotel Ritz was expected from one of his rankings, but the choice nonetheless aroused some curiosity: Why should I change it? It’s a nice hotel – he explained after the last victory in four sets over Shapovalov – obviously not like a five-star hotel, but I like the bed. And then it’s not even that far from the fields, there isn’t much traffic. Why should I move to another structure?.

He forgot to sign up for Roland Garros

But not the only strangeness of which he became the protagonist. They know it well in Paris, where his name has never appeared among the tennis players who fought for a landing on the main draw of the Roland Garros through qualifications. The reason? He forgot his registration: I was supposed to play against Zapata at the Madrid Open and I didn’t realize that I was out of the top 100 and therefore had to start the practices. An inattention that would eat your hands, even if in the end Roman got hurt in Rome and therefore would not have had the possibility to participate in the French tournament anyway. At that point he staked everything on grass: an inauspicious start a Stuttgart (a loss in the first qualifying round against world number 295 Benjamin Hassan), out in the first round of the main draw in Halle with the German Jan-Lennard Struffquarterfinals a Majorca. As a boy he beat his compatriots Medvedev, Rublev and Khachanovall of whom subsequently entered the Top 10. Like Sinner, who will have to pass over Roman’s dreams for the Wimbledon semifinal.